State Digest
Poultry processor fires back over lawsuit
DOVER, Del. (AP) — An Arkansas-based poultry company is firing back against lawyers who have filed a purported class-action lawsuit stemming from wastewater violations at a southern Delaware processing plant.
A spokesman for Mountaire Farms says the company has not seen the complaint filed Wednesday. But Mountaire is taking aim at what it calls a media blitz by plaintiffs' attorneys, who held a press conference announcing the filing.
Mountaire called the press conference a publicity stunt by a group of opportunistic lawyers.
The company says lawyers are hoping to cash in on a problem that has already been solved through a consent decree with Delaware environmental officials.
Mountaire also says elevated levels of nitrates in groundwater is a common condition in Sussex County that predates the arrival of the processing facility in 2000.
Oklahoma tribes to provide statue for Marshals Museum
FORT SMITH (AP) — The Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma will contribute to the U.S. Marshals Museum in Arkansas a statue of a native lighthorseman who worked with federal marshals to keep order in the Indian Territory.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the museum board voted Tuesday to accept the recommendation from the tribes' Intertribal Council for the statue by Dan HorseChief, a Cherokee-Pawnee artist.
The statue design shows a life-size lighthorseman sitting on a rearing horse. The tribes referred to their mounted police as lighthorsemen. The law enforcement entities currently remain on duty under the title of marshals.
Cherokee Nation representative Catherine Gray says the statute will sit at the center of a museum plaza she expects to include spaces for each tribe to tell their stories.
Arkansas murder defendant can no longer represent himself
LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A North Little Rock man who is charged with murder will no longer be allowed to act as his own attorney.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that 43-yearold Parnell May has repeatedly interrupted his court hearings and the judge on Tuesday barred him from continuing as his own lawyer.
May did not complain about the ruling, but did complain that he's being subjected to double jeopardy because prosecutors upgraded the original first-degree murder charge to capital murder and are seeking a life sentence.
May has pleaded not guilty to the December 2016 beating death of 41-year-old Ann Marie Mireles. The state Public Defender Commission will hire an attorney to represent May.
Mireles' body was found outside the North Little Rock home where she and May had lived for three days.